From DIY to Drenched to Dream

Yes, no one ever wants to go back and relive the hard two years of the pandemic we shall not name. But sometimes, in the middle of the night, a dream comes that gives one the grit to face another day. Our dream started in December 2020 when the convergence of a struggling housing market, low interest rates and desperate financial providers collided, and we bought our forever home.

A forever home is not only the place in which one would love to make forever memories, but also the space in which there is forever work. When we bought it, we knew that the work would be a lifelong commitment and now that all our money has been spent to secure the deal, ‘DIY’ has become our middle name.

To summarise, the open-plan kitchen and living area was a cacophony of ’90s colour palettes, design-less functionality, impractical proportions and a whole lot of ‘old’. The greatest shock was the already rotting kitchen cupboards, covered by the strangest pink tones of oak melamine, perhaps to echo the baby pink walls on the outside. It felt like we were living in a Pink album, with all its oddity and stick-out moments.

Before we knew it, drills, hammers and screwdrivers came out, and we took out 40% of the kitchen cupboards ourselves. Or rather, Helena did. The remaining ones were passionately attacked with a heat gun, pulling away each layer, and the heat of a visionary wife who did all the work helped get the cupboards ready for fresh paint within a day. Two days later, the pastel pinks were bright white, thanks to some high-quality cupboard paints; the existing black granite tops were married with new black handles. The kitchen was DIY good, but the dream kept on living.

The open-plan lounge area got a major upgrade this time around. Ugly old brown tiles were removed to bring in fresh, wood-like vinyl floors. The light blue/grey, wine red and green (Hodge Podge) walls were repainted with “tack-room” white (that’s the name of the colour) as were the ceilings, which had a light green paint on them. And the big moment was the dark blue accent wall around the fireplace.

New light fittings replaced old tacky ones, which we even tried to sell for some extra DIY money on Facebook Marketplace.

We were happy in our new home; the DIY with the help of some contractors for floors and lighting installation, was good enough. But good enough forever? We still had a dream…

A camping trip at the end of 2022 ended with the shocking news that a flash flood had hit our town, and as a result, water entered our roof, drenching our entire kitchen and living room. The kitchen cupboards were reawakened to their old rotten identity, swollen up, done! The electric oven, hob and extractor fan were soaked. It was a nightmare, again. Who knew that our story would now move from DIY to Drenched to Dream? Thank goodness for Home Owners Insurance; after a bit of back and forth, they settled for the damages, and this time we could dream.

Friends who own a stunning kitchen design company were summoned and between Helena’s design sense and their practical insights, the perfect kitchen was on paper. A few weeks later, the DIY kitchen was out, and the Dream entered. New white oak cupboards and fresh quartz tops, a repaint and white tiles with a few finishing touches, and we are done.

A forever home is a forever journey of ups and downs. Sometimes it’s DIY, sometimes it gets drenched – but we have learned to never stop dreaming.